Intrepid Spitfire hunter David Cundall flew back there on Sunday (Dec 8) with fresh financial backing and armed with significant new evidence over where the planes are allegedly hidden.

Mr Cundall has promised that if any of the planes are found and salvaged one will be returned to its spiritual home in Birmingham, for the people of the city and the descendants of those who made them.

Returning with renewed optimism and determination he said: “I intend to dig well before Christmas.

“I have an expert who has confirmed evidence shows that there are large metallic objects at depth in the same place as eyewitnesses saw Spitfire box’s being buried.”

“I have a bore hole machine that will cut through concrete and steel and we will then place a camera down a hole and capture the images.”

The aircraft enthusiast believes that Lord Louis Mountbatten ordered the burial of at least 36 Castle Bromwich-built Spitfires in 1945 that were shipped to Burma towards the end of the Second World War.

In the summer, via the Birmingham Mail, he revealed new image surveys of man-made objects buried up to 11 metres deep in the grounds of Mingaladon Airport in Yangon.

He is “90 per cent” certain they are the missing Spitfires.

But just six months earlier, Mr Cundall’s first dig to find them ended in bitter disappointment.

The dig was halted by the Burmese Government after the discovery of underground cables connected to the airport amid fears of damaging its daily operations.

In a further blow, Mr Cundall’s original backers, Wargaming, pulled out of the project.

And some experts involved in the first excavation claimed he was “chasing a rainbow”, citing evidence suggesting the planes were broken up and given to locals for scrap.

The setbacks may have deterred a good many, but Mr Cundall, who has been hunting for the planes for 17 years, would not be put off.

Instead, the 63-year-old farmer, from Lincolnshire, sought and won fresh backing from an American company.

And he was further bouyed after a Midland man came forward suggesting he could “pretty much guarantee” the planes were buried there.